Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookies
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These dark chocolate peanut butter chip cookies are thick and fudgy with an extra rich chocolate flavor and tons of peanut butter chips. If you’ve been drooling over all the New York-style bakery cookies on social media – then you need to try these gooey cookies.
**This recipe was originally posted January 10, 2017 and updated August 1, 2024**
It’s no secret that I love peanut butter and chocolate. I’ve made gigantic peanut butter cookies, and my double chocolate cookies are an all-time favorite. So these dark chocolate peanut butter chip cookies are the perfect combination of the two. They’re extremely thick with a rich chocolate flavor and the centers are verging on gooey.
Years ago I started seeing photos of chocolate peanut butter chip cookies from Levain Bakery in New York City on Instagram and Pinterest, and that’s where the inspiration for this recipe came from. I won’t say that this is a copycat recipe, because since I don’t live in New York, I couldn’t try them side by side for comparison. Instead, I tried to emulate their cookies (or at least how they look on Insta) in this recipe. They’re gigantic, super thick, slightly gooey in the middle, and have slightly crispy edges.
Better still – because these cookies are extra thick, you can pack them with even more peanut butter chips.
How to Make Extra Thick, Gooey Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookies
Let’s talk about what makes these cookies so incredible:
- We’re using brown sugar to up the chewiness level of these cookies.
- Adding cake flour helps to make the cookies pillowy soft. We’re not using entirely cake flour though – because I still needed the cookies to have structure.
- Dutch-process cocoa gives a rich, bakery-style chocolate flavor.
- Making the cookies ginormous is key. Each cookie is about 1/3 cup of dough – or weighs around 4 ounces (112 grams).
- Then chill the dough for at least 1 hour before baking. This keeps them thick and minimizes the chances of the cookies spreading.
- Baking the cookies at a higher temperature helps to stop the cookies from spreading and give a slight crunch to the outside while keeping the inside gooey.
You’ll notice the dough is very sticky and thick – that’s ok. It should be slightly difficult to incorporate all of the dry ingredients into the dough.
These cookies are extra-large, soft in the middle, super fudgy and have so many peanut butter chips. The combination of rich chocolate and salty peanut butter makes them not too sweet, and the texture makes them truly incredible.
And if you’re looking for more decadent bakery style cookies, then be sure to try:
- Bakery-Style Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Reese’s Pieces Peanut Butter Cookies
- Espresso Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookies
Equipment
- Cookie Sheets
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour (188 grams)
- 1 cup cake flour (120 grams)
- 1 cup Dutch-process cocoa (90 grams)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter (226 grams), softened to room temperature
- 1 cup brown sugar (210 grams)
- 1 cup white sugar (200 grams)
- 2 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 2 cups peanut butter chips (about 300 grams)
Instructions
- In a large bowl whisk together the flour, cake flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
- In a separate large bowl beat together the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar until fluffy.
- Beat in the eggs and vanilla extract.
- Mix the dry ingredients into the butter mixture about 1/2 at a time. I typically do a few stirs by hand with a rubber spatula first, then turn the mixer to a low speed and gradually increase to a medium speed until combined. The batter will be very thick.
- Stir in the peanut butter chips.
- Cover the bowl with plastic and place in the fridge for at least 2 hours or up to 48 hours.
- When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 375F (190C) degrees and line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
- Form the dough into balls using about 1/4 to 1/3 cup per cookie – or weigh each cookie so that each is around 4 ounces (112 grams). If the dough is too hard to work with, let it sit on the counter for 10 minutes first. Place the cookies at least 2 inches apart on the lined cookie sheets.
- Bake the cookies 1 tray at a time on the middle rack of the oven for 12-14 minutes, or until the tops look just set.
- Remove from the oven. Allow the cookies to cool on the tray for at least 20 minutes. The cookies will continue to bake as they cool on the tray.
Notes
- Cake Flour: If you don’t have cake flour, measure out 1 cup all-purpose flour (in addition to the additional 1 1/4 cup you’ll already be using). Remove 3 tablespoons of flour and add in 3 tablespoons of cornstarch (AKA cornflour). Sift the mixture together 3 times.
- Cocoa: Natural cocoa powder will work too, but Dutch-process provides a richer flavor.
- For Smaller Cookies: Form the dough into balls about 1.5 tablespoons in size and bake for 8-10 minutes.
- Freezing: Cookie dough balls can be frozen in a freezer bag. Bake from frozen for 1-2 minutes longer.
- Storage: Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days.
- Nutrition: Nutrition information is based on 1 cookie, assuming the recipe yields 12 uniform cookies.
I love baking cookies and sharing with the nabors. This one has reached the top. The requests are across the board. Everyone loves these.
Sounds divine, Fiona — and just just the cure after drooling over the Levian cookies I’m never going to buy: thank you so much! Best regards. –Joanna
These are very wonderful cookies! I think my batter was a bit soft, but that was easily fixed with some fridge time. The cookies came out moist and rich. I had some extra dark cacao powder and mixed a bit in to darken the cookies even more. I’m not much of a baker but I love finding good recipes to try, and will enjoy using this one often. Thank you!
Been looking for new recipes again, glad I found this. Thank you! This looks really lovely 🙂
Oh my gosh!!!! These cookies were the absolute best. They turned out exactly like the pictures. I think next time I might add some chopped peanuts in them too